Classic Survival

From The Long Walk, former Polish cavalryman Slavomir Rawicz's 1956 chronicle of his escape from a Siberian labor camp and brutal journey through the Gobi Desert

Mar 8, 2007

The severely-rationed dried fish gave out on about the fifth day and still we faced a lifeless horizon. In all this arid world only eight struggling human specks and an occasional snake were alive. We could have ceased to move quite easily and lain there and died. The temptation to extend the noonday halt, to go on dozing through the hot afternoon until the sun dropped out of sight, invited our dry, aching bodies. Our feet were in a pitiable state as the burning sand struck through the thin soles of our worn moccasins. I found myself croaking at the others to get up and keep going. There is nothing here, I would say. There is nothing for days behind us. Ahead there must be something. There must be something.

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He drove the thought of his freezing feet, and nose, and cheeks, out of his mind, devoting his whole soul to the matches. He watched, using the sense of vision in place of that of touch, and when he saw his fingers on each side the bunch, he closed them--that is, he willed to close them, for the wires were down, and the fingers did not obey.

--From Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire"

He jerked frantically at his left arm, trying to pull it free, throwing all of his weight against his shoulder and his arm, trying to jar it loose, but the limb wouldn't come, it just wouldn't come, it was stuck, still stuck, and it was throbbing now. He bucked again, knocked his head against something sharp. Stars appeared, shimmering motes of silvery light floating in the air before him. He paused, winded, wiped his forehead with his hand, came away with a sticky palmful of blood and ants. He'd seen kittens and other baby animals killed by ants, ants crawling out of their mouths and eyes and noses. Soon, when daylight came, the flies would return. They would lay eggs. Maggots would hatch. He imagined his body in the van in a week or so. I have entered the food chain, he told himself. I have left the top of the food chain and become part of the lower order.

--From Mike Sager's September 2000 Esquire story "An Imperfect Weekend," about a man who spends fifty-six hours trapped in his wrecked van and ultimately cuts part of his arm off in an attempt to free himself